Just coming back from London where, in addition to work, I went to see the musical Hairspray. What a happy, joyful, anti-racist, anti-sizist bundle of great Sixties music, wonderful performances by Leanne Jones and Michael Ball and one of the only musicals I’ve been to where one felt the audience (which had many big, beautiful and blonde ladies in it) would break out dancing. They certainly were singing along.. A great show, not at all preachy with some great R&B, Motown and rock n roll inspired numbers. I can see real women (and I don’t mean just big girls, Tracey’s friend is long and lanky) loving this musical and men who love real women will love it too. It’s kind of what the Sixties should have been, and in many ways was..

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hairspray_(musical)

Matt passed his driving test! Not only that but it was a horrible foggy rainy day. Well done Matt!

My son Matt got jumped by a couple of lads who beat him around the head with a baseball bat last night. They’d already punched him up at the bus stop before driving to a bridge near our house and laying in wait for him to arrive and walk home. That is malicious, nay planned and evil. What is worse is that they had been out with him all evening on good terms, with some slight falling out over a girl between Matt’s friend and the lads. After the attack he staggered home and banged us up terrified with a bleeding cut on the head and various bruises from the bat all over. We called the police and got him to hospital and he is physically fine but very traumatised from the threats they made to him and us if he went to the police.

Long story short, today Matt gave a statement to the police, they were very good and helpful and addressed his fears. They has already arrested one of the lads and this afternoon he confessed to the attack but not to using a weapon. When the other lad comes back from work and is arrested then they’ll be released on police bail which will restrict where they can go relative to Matt and our house. They’ll probably be charged with actual bodily harm with intent or possibly grievous bodily harm with intent. Of course you can’t be sure, it isn’t always as simple as that and there is a long way to go, but since he’s confessed then I can’t see it not ending in court.

My concern is that my son is safe, and that this doesn’t traumatise him too much and/or affect his A-level exams.. next one Friday. I do want the lads punished and also taught a lesson so they don’t do that again. A premeditated ambush with a weapon aiming most blows at the head is well beyond some laddish rough stuff, it is plain wrong.

How do I feel? Very strangely calm.

I feel the British Labour Government is lurching ever rightward and reactionary as they lose their grip on power and reality. For all their faults the first Labour government decentralised, liberalised whilst they also strangely did the opposite in other areas. Now, as they fall apart we see them desparately trying to appeal to the populist reactionary constituency: new ill defined censorship laws that will no doubt haunt us for decades, Dangerous Porn Act; redefinition of cannabis against the advice of all experts and the police, Smith & Cannabis; the ongoing debacle that will be ID cards, and now the revelation that despite being the most spied on individuals in the world, CCTV has no realisable effect on crime at all, CCTV doesn’t work.

I shall write to my MP, even though he is retiring and the constituency is being redrawn.

I have built my veg bed in the blizzard and carted 2 tonne of topsoil. Jiggered beyond belief.